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Gaming Google a Gateway To Crime?
netbuzz writes "Merely hiring a blackhat practitioner of search-engine optimization may be indicative of a willingness to 'cut corners' — the kind that land business executives behind bars — says Matt Cutts, Google's top cop regarding such matters. It's an interesting theory, as generalizations go, but there would seem to be quite a leap between risking the death penalty from Google and risking a stint in prison."
It's not even cutting corners, the Google guy is euphemistically describing "illegal" activity by Google's rules. And while SEO activities that break Google's rules aren't technically illegal other than sanctions brought by Google for getting caught I think Cutts makes an interesting and probably valid point.
Just because something isn't codified into law doesn't make it ethical or right. Law can and will never model completely human behavior, nor should it. But outside of the law there are behaviors that demonstrate or point to probability someone would also break codified law. SEO like any other discipline has approaches that work and are within ethical boundaries. But it also, like any other, has approaches that are not okay.
IMO it's about boundaries, and the ramifications when activity infringes on another's ability to freely engage in their own activity. Competition is one thing. Subverting a mechanism is quite another, especially when subversion comes at others' expense.
As for the quasi-argument from the summary:
The whole MO of people like this is they don't think they're risking a stint in prison. They completely rationalize their behaviors beyond any reasonable state of self-denial. Watch some of the videos of the Enron depositions... these guys (IMO) truly believe their actions were within the bounds of legal activity. (Actually some probably were, the shame of the whole Enron scam is a lot of goats took the fall for the more powerful, though it was nice to see at least a couple of high level execs finally taken out.)
People who are anti-social, who attempt to game the system for their own gain at our expense, are known to engage in other anti-social acts to bring about their own gain at others expense.
What a surprise.
How about, "People who don't think about what larger effect their actions will have are amoral, while people who recognize that their actions will have larger, detrimental effects on others and still engage in those actions are evil."
People behave according to their character.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
From the article's quotation of Cutts:
Can I definitively claim that there's a connection between a willingness to embrace blackhat SEO and a willingness to cut corners in other areas of business? No, of course not.
So in other words, he's drawing a conclusion based on one (or a handful, who knows) of cases and then this particular author made a story out of it and Slashdot picked it up?
Yeah, non-issue; move along.
Not as much as an indication of willingness to commit crime as general untrustworthiness.
If you are willing to pretend you are something you are not to the search engines (which is basically what black hat SEO consists of) in order to lure customers to your site, there is a good chance you are willing to do something similar to the customers in order to ensure a sale.
It's funny how Google sounds more and more like Microsoft as time goes by ...
"Man is nothing without the works of man" -- Helvetius
Father: "Why are you gaming Google to get your myspace page to the top of the list? Where did you learn to do that, huh?!"
Kid: "YOU, alright! I learned it from watching you!"
I think it makes some sense, try thinking of it as "breaking rules". Google has a set of rules about proper search engine optimization. Some of these rules might not be well documented but people generally know when they're trying to get around them or cheat them.
Any success in breaking Google's rules could result in increased profits from a higher pagerank giving the rule breaker a sense that it pays to cheat. So why not cheat somewhere else with another set of breakable rules? Taxes? Mortgages?
You wouldn't steal a car...
Matt Marlon of Traffic Power was arrested for running a mortgage scam, not for breaking Google rules for SEO. Cutts is just using this to push his agenda. God help us all if some other SEO boss gets arrested for shoplifting or grand theft auto.
Oh come on now, how much of a fanboy do you have to be to think that modifying your own web pages in a way you see fit is equivalent to committing a crime because Google doesnt like it? Google has no right to tell people what they can and cant do on the internet, they are not the law. Doing something they dont like is not equivalent to breaking the law. If their algorithm doesnt handle other people's websites doing certain things very well they should fix their algorithm, not demand that everyone play by their rules and design their websites in a way which doesnt mess up their algorithm.
I know that a lot of the things they push may be in the best interests of the tech industry but at the same time it doesnt seem right that they have anointed themselves as the police and lawmakers of the internet. (how many lobbyists do they have again trying to get laws written which are friendly to them?)
From Corporate Profits Take an Offshore Vacation : Google similarly set up an Irish subsidiary, Google Ireland Holdings Ltd, which in 2004, its first year, helped the company avoid paying about 131 million dollars in U.S. taxes. Google noted in its annual report that year that it expected its effective tax rate to drop even more significantly. It explained, "This is primarily because proportionately more of earnings in 2005 compared to 2004 are expected to be recognised by our Irish subsidiary, and such earnings are taxed at a lower statutory tax rate (12.5 percent) than in the U.S. (35 percent)."
The amusing part is that if Microsoft or Sony said 'breaking our rules indicates a tendency towards criminal behavior'... The replies would be filled with flames and laughter.
But it's Google, so they get a pass and people take them almost seriously.
Yeah, non-issue; move along
The mere fact that Cutts can't prove definitively that there is a correlation between use of blackhat SEO techniques and cutting corners in other areas doesn't mean that his statement is without merit. Anecdotal evidence has shown me that in the business world if you cut corners in one place, you're likely to do the same in others. Hire undocumented workers. Pay people under the table. Don't divulge some earnings. Mix your personal and business accounts. Tarnish other businesses with innuendo. Hire a blackhat SEO specialist.
I think it is important to recognize that SEO is in the mainstream of most big business operations these days, and it is no longer appropriate to think of blackhat SEO as just a "geek topic." It's a front and center business ethics issue.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
The "gateway crime" theory is way overused. It's true dishonest people do dishonest things. The question is, did gaming the search engine come first, did cooking the books come first, or are the people involved simply dishonest to begin with and it doesn't matter which one they did first, they'll just do anything to make a buck. I'm betting the last one rings true in this and most other situations.
The same holds true for marijuana as a gateway drug. People think that taking marijuana almost always leads to harder drugs. That's simply not true. The fact that someone jumps from mary jane to cocaine does happen, but it has nothing to do with the drug, but the person using it. Just like people continue to think "prostitution" is a gateway crime and therefore want laws strictly enforced. If government would simply make it legal and regulate it, crimes tied to prostitution would be drastically reduced, but that would require going against the moral majority and thinking outside the box.
If you are willing to do one dishonest and illegal thing (and do it with no remorse), you are likely to do others (i.e. correlation). It all has to do with the morals of the person committing the act. The article doesn't say much but it makes sense in all other areas. But stop calling it "Gateway crime," I'm sick of that label because it implies causation and leads to stupid crime prevention policies.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
Although I don't disagree at a high-level with Matt, this is also a bit of a stretch. The way I see it, Google's algorithm is far from perfect. All too often, I search for something and get results back from web sites that don't deserve to be at the top of the list but are not necessarily doing any kind of black-hat SEO. For whatever reason, Google incorrectly bestows traffic (and therefore revenue) to these sites that appear at the top. So would you blame someone who has a better web site from "pushing the envelope a bit"? To say that this behavior automatically constitutes some degree of moral decrepitude is a bit of a stretch. There are behaviors that are clearly wrong and I wholeheartedly disagree with them. But to expect perfection from the masses when Google's search results themselves are not perfect is a bit hypocritical in my view. Another way of putting it: It's easy for Google to sit back and say you do this and that to web site owners while Google's making Billions and so many sites are barely able to survive despite good quality content and top-notch intentions. Worse still is that Google has a "diversity problem" in my opinion. Top 10 search results will be from only 4 or 5 sites instead of from 10 different sites so you have more options to choose from. But what do I know.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks